App Activation Continues to Climb

Secure Browsers Lead Growth

For the fourth quarter in a row, secure browsers led all app categories, growing 57% quarter-over-quarter, to account for 37% of all apps deployed by organizations.

Custom Apps Win Popularity Contest

Custom apps were the most popular app category for the retail industry (40%), followed by the insurance industry (31%), financial services (25%), business and professional services (15%) and energy and utilities (13%).

Why Build One When You Can Build Two or More

58% of organizations that build custom applications have built two or more apps, 15% built five or more, and 7% built 10 or more. The average organization has developed 3.74 custom apps.

App Usage Rises

Seven in 10 organizations (70%) use two or more apps beyond email.

Public Sector Adds Secure Browsing

43% of all apps in government were either document access or document editing, and 31% were secure browser apps, up 10% from last quarter.

Businesses Want Secure Messaging

24% of apps in energy and utilities were secure instant messaging (IM) apps, followed closely by high tech (23%) and finance (21%).

iOS Regains Activation Share

New iPhones helped boost iOS share. iOS device activations regained some previous losses, building its lead from 64% to 66%. Android's share of activation fell slightly to 31%, while Windows dropped to 2% and Windows Phone held at 1%.

Tabulating Tablet Activation

In the third quarter, iOS accounted for 71% of tablet activations, Android 21% and Windows 8%. However, the tablet market is increasingly fragmented. Just two quarters ago, 81% of tablets ran iOS.

iOS Rules Regulated Industries

For the third quarter in a row, iOS device adoption held steady or grew in regulated industries. iOS accounted for 83% of public-sector activations, followed by financial services (77%), education (77%) and insurance (68%).

Android Leads in High Tech

Android maintained its lead with 52% of all activations in high tech, and eked out a slight lead over iOS in transportation at 50% vs. 49% for iOS.

Enterprises are developing and deploying an increasing number of custom secure mobile apps. According to BlackBerry's Good Mobility Index Report organizations on average developed 3.74 custom apps in the third quarter to help mobilize business processes. The report also shows a 30 percent quarter-over-quarter increase in app activations and growth in the number of organizations using multiple apps beyond email. This is a good reason for solution providers focused on mobile-device management to beef up their practices around mobile enterprise security platforms. Solution providers also may want to consider honing their vertical market expertise with unique requirements. The retail industry, for example, was the largest adopter of custom applications, while government agencies and other public-sector organizations focused their mobile initiatives on document-based workflows. The report is based on data aggregated from devices activated across the worldwide customer base of Good Powered by BlackBerry. (BlackBerry recently acquired Good Technology.) Here are highlights from the report.